|
|
The district surveillance office that will oversee the initiative. Picture by Bhola Prasad
|
Jamshedpur, Oct. 27: The East Singhbhum district health department is looking at factories and small scale industrial units to spread the word — especially among males — about family planning measures.
The district, which carried out around 2,600 tubectomy operations between April and September this year — the second highest in the state — wants to improve its male vasectomy numbers.
According to reports, the health department had managed to convince merely 100 males, against a target of 300, to undergo non-scalpel vasectomy during the same period (April to September).
East Singhbhum’s additional chief medical officer Swarn Singh said letters had already been sent to the management of around 100 factories and small-scale units, all of whom had been asked to create awareness about family planning measures among their male workers.
“We have attached pamphlets sent to us by the state health department and those circulated by city-based NGOs working in this sector. The idea is to get more men to undergo the non-scalpel vasectomy operations,” Swarn Singh said. He added that they had also tried to dispel the myth that vasectomy operations have an adverse effect on the health of men.
According to current government rules, anyone opting for vasectomy operation receives Rs 1,100 from the state, with the person acting as motivator getting Rs 200. The operations are carried out at all government health centres and at Parivar Kalyan Sansthan (Telco Colony) and Tata Steel Family Initiative Foundation at Dhatkidih.
The health department has also mooted plans to send out teams to industrial units to carry out awareness drives from next month onwards.
Plans are also afoot to hold street plays and counsel small scale factory workers to delay their marriage and have the first child when both partners are at least 21-years-old.
|
